


The Angels Let Go

by achievement-bender (Themanofmanyhats)



Series: To Save the Gods [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, Sky Factory AU, me? making sad-ass prequels to my skyfac au? more likely than you think, minecraft au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-04 22:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21204794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themanofmanyhats/pseuds/achievement-bender
Summary: Before Trevor saved the gods, all he wanted to do was save his friends. And before that, all he wanted to do was save himself. Somehow, he doesn't manage to do either.





	The Angels Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> _Slow down, start again from the [beginning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlDejzC3Tr4)_

Trevor’s home is a little house with a river running beside it, a modest bit of farmland, and the ring of trees around them. His family is his mom and dad, the few hogs in the barn, and the stars that visit every night. Their land is small, but more than enough to keep afloat. They manage the fields themselves, hire a few workers in the fall, sell their goods at market. It’s a good life, those first few years. 

He’s young, but not young enough to not remember, when his father falls ill. Comes up with this rough, sticky cough that pierces through the walls. That’s the only way he hears it. His mother won’t let him in the same room with his father at that point. He remembers staying up all through the night, unable to sleep, not when every time he starts to drift, a bone-rattling cough would shock him awake. Not when he can hear his mother muttering prayers, calling on names he doesn’t recognize to save him_ , please, please, save him. _On those nights, Trevor would crawl out of bed, open his window and gaze out at the night sky. The stars look like eyes, watching over him. Trevor asks the stars for help, and pretends their twinkle is their answer.

His father passes. Things get harder after that. It’s too much work for one woman and her young son to manage, and at the edges, crops wither, fields go untilled, animals go untended. One bad harvest, and the coffers run dry. His mother sells the little house they call home and they move into the city.

It’s a crowded, busy place. Their lodgings are squished above a market street that never seems to sleep. There’s a university somewhere deeper in the city, a grand library and few temples scattered around. Glowstone lamps flicker on at night and their light scares off all but the bravest stars. It’s different, very different, but it’s what home is for now.

His mother works, takes whatever little jobs she can, and Trevor goes to the school nearby. He meets friends there. There's Matt, who plays to his inventive side and it’s often that they’ll come to each other with something to tinker, or put pen to paper and sketch out the ideas nesting in their heads. Then there's Lindsay, who brings something more chaotic and Trevor’s down to get _ weird _every now and then, so they fit together well. They grow close and stick by him through the years. On the rare days his mother doesn’t bring back enough to feed them, Lindsay slips him bread from the bakery they apprentice at, and every winter Matt gives them scraps from his father's workshop to use as firewood.

They get by like that for years, through his mother’s hard work and the kindness of others, and Trevor hopes one day to repay them for everything they’ve done. It’s too late for his mother, though. The work, the heartache, it all catches up to her, and he has to give her what recompense he can on her deathbed, in muttered thanks and tearful apologies. He makes the prayers too — they give her comfort — stuttering over names he barely knows. The God of Life for longevity, the Blood Mage for healing, the same ones she called on when it was his father in the bed. The words feel hollow in Trevor’s ears, though he’s desperate enough to hope. Outside the window, dim stars watch over them, but he doesn’t ask them for favors.

His mother passes. Trevor’s still too young to be alone, really, but old enough that no one takes it upon themselves to watch over him. He’s left to himself and things are hard — but when haven’t they been? He takes up the little jobs his mother once did, becomes a cart loader, an inn waiter, a groundsweeper, whatever else comes up. Tries to finish his schooling — Matt and Lindsay refuse to let him give up on it.

"Can’t let that big brain of yours go to waste," they say.

He knows they’re right, that getting any sort of education would be key for his future, but the future feels like such a fleeting idea, and it’s hard to juggle everything in the moment. There aren’t enough hours in the day. But he tries.

He falls back a grade, works dusk to dawn everyday till he falls asleep on his feet, but his friends are there to catch him. Lindsay still slips him day-old bread and Matt makes sure his hearth stays lit through winter. A new friend too — Fiona, a seamstress at a tailor shop near his home, who one day tells him that he has a loose seam in his sleeve and seeing him walk by everyday with it is annoying her. She offers to fix it for him, and any other time after. She takes a shining to Lindsay and a shining to bullying Matt, and that’s all that needs to be said about that. When Trevor can’t afford rent and gets thrown out of his apartment, Fiona leaves the tailor shop door unlocked at night so he can slip in, sleep under the fabrics and be out before opening time. 

He finishes school without awards or accolades — “Which is bullshit”, Lindsay says — but things steady a little after that. He finds work and a place to live, as small and loud as the last, though he doesn’t mind. Is just happy that for once, he’s no longer a burden for his friends to carry. The three tell him not to worry about it, that they were happy to help when they could. To help a stranger is to save the gods, after all, so helping a friend must be something similar.

The years pass on. They settle into their places. Lindsay takes over the little bakery, Matt grows into the most skilled craftsman at the workshop, and Fiona moves up from needleworker to designer at the tailor's. They deserve it, and everything else good that comes their way, after all they’ve done for him. Deserve it and more. He sees how Lindsay gets restless in the shop all day, wonders what adventures are out there beyond the city. Sees Matt glance up at the facades of the city’s great towers while he’s busy building cabinets. Sees Fiona turn her nose at the snobbier clients she gets, wishing for work more worthwhile. If he could, he would give them all they deserve, but for now all he can do is keep himself afloat.

Trevor settles into place too, finds a job with the observatory on the outskirts of the city. He’s a calculator, given all the numbers and measurements and expected to compile pages and pages of astronomical tables through thousands and thousands of additions, multiplications, logarithms. It pays well and he knows his younger self would brighten at the idea of working with the night sky, but the reality is nothing glamorous. It’s monotonous, mind-numbing work. Stressful, too — one wrong calculation and suddenly the navigation tables are in chaos, a convoy of ships lost at sea, a star having slipped lightyears from where it should be.

He’s no astronomer, far from it. It’s only on the rarest occasion that he even touches a telescope, and when he does, he no longer looks at the stars in wonder. They're just balls of gas billions of miles away and when he stares up at them, he knows they’re not staring back. He does his work without passion, but he does it unwaveringly. There’s no climbing the ranks for a boy who barely made it through basic schooling, so he learns to settle in the place he has. Lets himself drown in the numbers and doesn't dare ask for more.

Alfredo steps into the picture and the monotony breaks. He’s a courier, part of a troop that carries mail or packages or whatever else between cities. Makes breakneck sprints on horseback and monthslong slogs through snow and sea. It’s after one of those slogs that Alfredo finds himself in the city, stopping by the observatory to pick up the astronomical tables his group needs to navigate. Trevor’s the one to get the papers together for him, hands them over without flourish. Alfredo’s eyes glaze over the numbers and he gives a low whistle.

“I have no idea what any of this means.” 

Trevor tilts his head. “I thought you were a courier?”

“I make the trips but I’m no navigator. Glad not to be. I don’t even know where to start with reading this.” 

“It’s not hard,” Trevor says, and Alfredo gives him a look that roughly translates to _ Bitch, what? _Without realizing, a laugh bubbles in his throat. “Okay, maybe it is. But I can teach you.”

It’s Alfredo’s turn to tilt his head. “You will?” 

Trevor nods.

"Why?" Alfredo asks.

Trevor shrugs. "Because I can."

He doesn’t really know what made him offer that day, but he did. It turns out to be one of his better choices in life. 

Alfredo has more than enough time to spare, having a few months off after a particularly harsh few months on the road, and he meets with Trevor after work near everyday. Eventually is there so often they just let him in the building, and he hangs around Trevor as he pores over papers. Tells him dumb jokes and tales of his travels, opens up the windows to let the light in and tips him out of his chair if he sits there for more than an hour because “It’s bad for your back, Trevor.” He’s docking Trevor’s productivity by at least 10%, really, but Trevor can’t bring himself to care. Enjoys it, actually. Is a little crestfallen on the few days Alfredo isn’t there, off visiting Lindsay or Matt or Fiona instead. But he’s always there, waiting, when work ends, and the time from dusk to dark become undoubtedly their’s. 

Trevor brings a few papers, maybe a sextant and a spyglass if he can smuggle them out, and the two hole up in a corner of a city to go over the tables. Little inns, apartment rooftops, the steps of temples, wherever they find. Sometimes Alfredo saddles up his horse and they ride out beyond the city limits, where the fainter stars show their heads and Trevor has to read over the papers by lantern light. Not much learning happens on those nights. Usually Trevor ends up putting the papers away and starts pointing out the constellations instead. The seven points of the Wanderer’s sword. The Solar Queen with his bow. The Blood Mage’s dagger and its three red stars. 

Alfredo looks up at the sky in wonder and the feeling is infectious. Trevor’s too old to think the stars are watching over him but he doesn’t need them to, not when Alfredo is there beside him. For the first time in years, the night takes Trevor's breath away.

Time sweeps away. Alfredo’s troop gets a new assignment, and soon he’s preparing for another journey to a city far, far past the horizon. A winding, seldom trodden path through mountains and tundra. A monthslong journey one way, and a monthslong journey back. It’s not a trip for the fainthearted. If only Alfredo was faint of heart.

It’s tradition for couriers to make offerings to the Wanderer before expeditions. Trevor joins Alfredo the day he goes to the temple to pay his dues, carries the bouquet of flowers the hawker outside said the god would accept as a gift. The temple is wood and stone, carved with decals of forests and flowers and fairies, and the floor echoes under their feet. They stand before a statue that towers over them, a man in intricate armor with a dead-eyed mask, staring down at them. Trevor lays down the flowers and Alfredo mutters some words, something about safe travels and clear paths and the lost finding their way home. There’s not much conviction in his voice. Traditions are just traditions, after all. Trevor can't say he has much conviction either, but before they leave, he makes one silent plea to the heavens. For safe return. The statue doesn’t answer and he can only hope the gods hear.

On the day Alfredo's due to leave, Lindsay wraps up a few warm loaves, Matt buckles a sturdier saddle to his horse, and Fiona gifts him a cloak of warm wool. Trevor has nothing to give, but Alfredo gifts him a tight embrace and a promise to return anyway. Whether it takes months or years, he'll find his way back. The words are worth more than anything the gods or stars have ever promised. Alfredo rides through the city gates and Trevor holds on to that image for years and years to come.

Trevor waits and on the days he can’t keep busy enough, his thoughts float to Alfredo, miles and miles away. His friends tell him not to worry, that he’s safe wherever he is, that he hasn’t forgotten them, that he’ll make his way back. Usually, that’s enough. Sometimes, it isn’t. On those days, he finds himself where he never thought he’d be. Back on the dais of the Wanderer. Staring up at the statue’s dead eyes. Because Trevor knows with certainty that he can do nothing for Alfredo, but the gods certainly can, and if there’s a chance they’re listening then he has to ask. He finds himself making rounds to the other temples. Makes simple requests. Stands on the marble of the Solar Queen’s shrine and asks for clear skies at sea. Makes an offering on the altar of the harvest god and asks that food and water may never be far. Asks the God of Life to protect just one. 

It’s two years until Alfredo returns. Two years until Trevor leaves work and sees him, waiting there, looking a little thinner, a little more weathered, though the beaming smile lighting his face hasn’t changed a bit. Trevor runs to him and thinks this is the greatest kindness the Universe has ever given him. He deigns not to waste it.

Trevor works hard and squirrels away every penny he can because he has an idea worming in his mind. A goal that he’s grown brave enough to hope for. Lindsay, Matt and Fiona deserve more than spinning their wheels in the city, going nowhere. Deserve not to struggle, pray for work everyday, be at the mercy of others' whims. And Alfredo, after all his years adrift, deserves a place to call home. Trevor's always wanted to give back for all the kindness they’ve given him and for once, he thinks, maybe he can. 

Trevor treks past the city walls to a little house with a river running beside it. The modest bit of farmland is unploughed and overgrown with weeds, the ring of trees have been allowed to squeeze in on all sides and the house itself sags from disrepair. Whoever bought the land from his mother must have given up on it, but he knows with just the right people, life could be breathed back into it. The right price too, but Trevor’s been working on that. Lived like a miser for years to save money and pulls some mischief as well — buys these little silkworms from a traveling merchant and lets them infect the trees to drop the property value down even more. Lindsay, Matt, Fiona and Alfredo make up that last little bit of gold they need and Trevor buys back the land he called home.

The five move in and they have their work cut out for them. There’s fields to clear, trees to cut, and a roof that barely holds up above their heads, but none of it worries them. They have their own two hands and friends around them and that’s enough to take on the world. They hunt, trap and forage, crack open an old mineshaft nearby and sell their haul at market. Till the earth and clear the trees, makes sure that the little silkworm problem stays secluded to one patch of the forest. Matt draws blueprints for a new house — a grand two-story thing with room for all of them and more to spare. A season passes, then another, and the fields bloom. Piece by piece, the house comes together, and day by day, they make it a home.

It’s a good life, those first few years. There’s work to do but Alfredo is happy to have a place where he can grow his roots. Lindsay and Fiona appreciate the space, the freedom. Still bake and design when they want to, but now _ only _when they want to. Start enjoying their free time, each other’s company, even take up swordplay and get much too good at it, much too fast. Matt builds their home from the ground up and doesn’t stop, has plans for a new barn and a little forge too. Trevor is just happy that they’re beside him. It's all he's ever asked for, and he wants nothing more.

The past still sticks with him, the residue of the days when he was kept up by stress, or hunger, or piercing coughs coming through the walls. There’s little he can do when he can't fall asleep one night, like so many others, so he gets up and walks downstairs as quietly as he can. Apparently not quietly enough.

“What’re you doing up?” Alfredo asks from the top of the stairs.

Trevor waves him away. “Don’t worry about it, just go back to bed.”

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, making the rest of his way downstairs. “I’ll stay up with you.”

“Why?”

Alfredo shrugs. “Because I can.”

They make their way outside so not to wake the others. The night is clear but the tops of the trees cut off a fair bit of the sky. Alfredo finds ivy crawling up the side of the house and they climb it up, all the way to the roof. There, they watch the stars in all their glory. Alfredo points out the constellations he remembers and Trevor points out the ones he forgets. Trevor’s just showing how the stars in the Solar Queen’s bow point to the north star when a red glow bursts to life in the sky. It stops his words dead in their tracks and the two of them stare, enraptured. It grows brighter and brighter and brighter still, till it starts to dim away. Alfredo looks to him for answers but Trevor has none to give. They keep watching, until the glow fades back to nothing. A moment later, a shooting star streaks back, brighter than any he’s ever seen. Then another, and another, and another. Five in total, and then nothing more. The light sticks in their eyes when they blink.

“Wasn’t expecting that,” Alfredo says when they find their bearings, grinning as he looks at him. “Lucky we were out tonight.”

They lay back against the roof, feeling like they've just seen something extraordinary. This night won’t be one they’ll soon forget.

Trevor wakes up late the next morning. Lindsay's in the fields and they tease him for oversleeping when he comes out to join them. Doesn't blame him though. Looks up at the clouds masking the sun, moving along like sludge, casting false dark. The air feels heavy, and it's chilly for this early in the fall.

“It’s been like this all day," they says, "Feels weird."

Trevor hums. “Hopefully it passes soon.”

A day later and the clouds haven’t passed. Lindsay bursts into the house and tells them they need to go to the barn. They find Matt in the stalls, petting one of the cows that’s dropped to its knees. It bucks under his hands, tries to get up only to stumble back to the ground. 

“C’mon, don’t be like that, buddy,” Matt says, trying to keep the animal calm.

Trevor looks at the dull sheen in its eyes, the foam flecking its mouth, and swallows down the nervous feeling building in his chest. “I think you should stay away from it. It looks sick.”

They leash it, force it on its feet and tie it to a post in the meadow. Whether or not it was sick, they wanted it away from the other animals. A few days later, and there’s no denying it. They quickly put the thing out of its misery. 

The clouds pass but a chill still haunts the air. The sun looks paler in his eyes, but Trevor doesn’t say that, afraid he’s wrong and that he’s seeing things, but just as afraid he’s right. One of the mineshafts caves in. A carrot patch comes up withered and brown. The silkworm infestation, which they’ve kept secluded for years, suddenly flares and soon the trees all around them are painted white. He makes his way to the house one evening and finds Fiona sitting on the porch. She has a sword across her lap and stares intently at something in the woods. Trevor follows her eyes. Something’s shifting in the shadows, dull yellow eyes staring back at him. The breeze wafts past with the distinct smell of rotting flesh.

“They never get this close,” Fiona says. 

Trevor gulps. Eventually the shadows still and the eyes blink away, but the worry lingers.

Autumn comes to an end. They load the carts, fix the horses and take their harvest to the town nearby. They sell well and fast, but Trevor notices something strange in the air. How people are desperate to get food like there won’t be enough. How the temples doors are wide open, altar covered in offerings, people passing in and out in a constant stream. From inside he hears praying, shouting, arguing — weeping too. He catches the eyes of the statue inside and its dead, dull stare sends a shock of fear down his spine. If the others notice, they don’t say. Trevor clutches the coin pouch in his hands. 

“We should stock up,” he tells them. “I have a feeling this is gonna be a hard winter.”

Winter hits. It’s tough — they lose a pair of hens, another cow, their traps in the forest keep coming up empty — but they make it through. They hope for a better year. It’s all they can do. Even when a whole field of corn fails to sprout, even when dead fish start floating to the riverbank, even when a summer monsoon threatens to rip apart their house. They struggle against it, fight for all they’re worth. Sell their livestock, venture farther into the forest, work dawn past dusk, and rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. It should be enough. If the world was fair, it should be enough. They go into next winter with a near empty barn, not enough food and hope dwindling fast. 

The days grow desperate. Storms batter the house, sending branches through their windows, letting in the biting cold air. They go down from two measly meals a day, to just one, to a dinner of meltwater and nothing else. Every day drags for eternity. It’s terrifying, how they all still, growing more and more tired until all they can do is sit around the fire in silence. Like they’re all slowly dying. He wants to make it stop. He wants to save them. Wants it more than anything else in his entire life.

It’s on one horrible, desperate night in the dead of winter that Trevor breaks. They’re all huddled inside except for Alfredo who went out to find food, even though they’d told him not to, that the winds are too harsh and the snow too deep, but he’d gone anyway. They’d boarded up another broken window, but the cold still seeps in. Matt’s cough is rougher than usual and even though they’re all sure it’s nothing — Matt always has a cough — the sound triggers something in Trevor. Of his father dying, of the hard nights after, of his mother, of being so completely and utterly powerless that he snaps. He’s afraid, so afraid that it borders on hysteria and suddenly he can’t sit still. Bolts to his feet, rushes out the door and wades through snow as the wind howls, makes it a few steps before he crashes to his knees. Trevor looks up to the sky, at the stars staring down, and begs. For kindness, for mercy, for anything. Begs them to lift this curse they’d cast. Begs them to save his friends. The stars stare unblinkingly back. If the gods answer, the wind rips the sound from his ears. Something in Trevor shatters.

Fiona and Lindsay come out, wrap him in a blanket and gently coax him back inside. Slowly, Trevor unfreezes and lets Fiona guide him to his feet. Lindsay says they're going to look for Alfredo and Trevor doesn’t even try to stop them. Just goes inside, sits at the dining table, sips the water Fiona gives him and ignores the worried looks Matt shoots his way. Eventually, Alfredo and Lindsay return. Alfredo looks at him, must’ve heard from Lindsay what happened because he looks shaken when he first enters. Doesn’t say anything though, just sits next to him and smiles softly. Says he caught some rabbits, found some bark they can boil for tea. Trevor nods but doesn’t smile back. He can’t face the stubborn hope in Alfredo’s eyes, not when he’s lost his own, lost it somewhere deep in the snow.

Trevor’s made up his mind. As soon as winter ends, he saddles the horses, splits their gold, and tells the four to leave. Tells them to find work that can feed them and a home fairer than this one. Tells them there’ll be work out there for them, that the world needs builders and warriors and explorers to carve out whatever this new, cruel age will bring. Tells them that staying here will be the death of them. That they deserve more — so much more — than Trevor can ever give them. 

They refuse. Hold onto that faint spark of hope, because they’re stronger than him in that way. Try to hunt more, tend the fields better, tell him things are bound to change. But Trevor knows they won’t — he saw it in the stars that night. The hunts come back empty, the fields wither. They avert their gazes from Trevor’s pleading eyes but he begs and begs and begs until winter threatens to roll around again, begs until they have to listen.

The fields are barren. The trees are rotting. Clouds gather on the horizon and Trevor brings the horses out again.

“Please,” he says. “Please.”

They look tired, so tired, when they meet his eyes. But they don’t argue. Their silhouettes fade into the treeline and the image burns into his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I have to make to save the gods sadder? No, but it happened. Will there be more in this series? Maybe. Did skyfac part 14 give me vertigo? Absolutely.


End file.
